23 minutes of gameplay

Impressions

Developer Interview

GameExplain was finally able to show off tons of videos about StarLink when they got a chance to demo the game for 2 hours of gameplay. We get two full cutscenes with Fox, Falco, Slippy, and Peppy. Plus, we get to see how the game starts off and how the Star Fox team is integrated into the story. Below are all the important facts I saw and heard.

• Fox McCloud verbally confirms that his home planet is Papetoon.
• The Star Fox team came to the Atlas star system in pursuit of Wolf.
• They, of course, have Peppy saying "Do a Barrel Roll!" to Fox.
• They are using the same voice actors from Star Fox Zero.
• They get caught up in a disaster that forces the two teams to work together until they can part ways, but Fox wants to stick together until all the mysteries are solved.
• Peppy, Slippy, and Falco are the main pilots with Fox. Krystal is no-where to be seen so far.
• The characterizations of the Star Fox team seem to be true to the characters, right down to the campy dialog.
• It looks like they integrated the Star Fox characters pretty well into the cutscenes and gameplay, in some cases, what are clearly brand new cutscenes just for the interactions between the two teams.
• The game has a cipher language that one character uses, though I've already confirmed that it is not Saurian, nor is it a simple shift cipher.
• The toys to life parts, such as the wings and weapons, can be attached backwards if you so choose, meaning you can actually have weapons that shoot backwards if you want.
• The events in the game sometimes happen in real time, so for example, if you receive a distress signal from an outpost, but don't help out, that outpost may be destroyed later on.
• Once you complete the initial part of the game's story, it appears that the game opens up and you can more or less travel to any planet in any order, provided you can survive.
• If you have physical parts for the toys-to-life can be scanned and used for about one week before they expire. After which, you have to scan them again. If you bought the parts digitally, they stay forever. Not sure how it works if you earn the parts in-game.
• At E3 2017, Nintendo approached the StarLink team, and asked for a demo of the game. Then they asked for another demo and another demo, with all of Nintendo's big game designers in the audience. Nintendo seemed to like it, so they reached out and proposed a collaboration to the original Star Fox development team.
• Nintendo was very collaborative with the team to make a nice back and forth development experience.
• The graphics resolution on the Switch version is slightly lower than other versions, but the gameplay is the same.

via GoNintendo

Oh, and it looks like two of the final four character slots are filled on the StarLink website, so the chances of a full playable Star Fox team, even without Krystal, appears to be no longer in the cards. There are two slots left, however.

It's tough, you know? Waiting for Starlink and Super Smash Bros Ultimate to come out and fill the Star Fox-sized hole in all our hearts. But in the meantime, Everspace, the roguelike space sim with freeform dogfights and exploration is out now. It was released during the fanfare of Gamescom last week. This is a port of the PC version that came out a couple years ago on Steam. Reviews seem generally positive.

Check out GreasyMOJO's sped-up Krystal digital drawing process. He originally posted the drawing in real-time, with audio commentary, but the microphone settings were bad and it was very long, so he uploaded this audio-free, speed version. You can also check out the Finished Artwork.

Nice try, IGN! The footage from the original video in the last post still exists as part of their 5 hour long livestream. Just jump to time 1:28:28. You can watch it above.

And, in case they try to take THAT down, I have already made a copy of the entire livestream. Enjoy some screens!

Before I had a chance to post the below story, IGN took down the video and 404'd their own website's article about the interview. What's going on? Did the devs say too much? Did IGN release something early by accident?

The post below is what was originally going to be posted today.

In a developer interview with IGN, the Starlink team at Ubisoft showed off the other classic members of the Star Fox team: Peppy Hare, Slippy Toad, and Falco Lombardi. They gave no indication that those characters will be playable, only saying that the player could use Fox as a playable character. There are still four open slots for unrevealed pilots on the game's homepage and mentioned in the video, so any of these characters (and more) could still be playable. We also hold out hope that the lovely blue vixen will join the fight.

Also shown was that the other Star Fox pilots fly around with you in space and do a full-3D, go-anywhere dogfight above a planet. This is what the space battles will be like, which differ from the flight/hover gameplay on the ground.

After an initial failed start, VGM Classics, a new Video Game Music Label, is setting out to make a Star Fox 64 fully orchestral CD via Kickstarter. They're already 16% towards their goal of $15,000, with another 28 days to go.

Check out the project!

After fighting off a missile attack on the Orbital Gate, the Star Fox team and the remnants of the Cornerian Fleet prepare to warp to the Aparoid Homeworld.

This is the Waifu2x-enhanced version of the tiny pre-rendered frames to bring this video all the way up to 4K resolution!

Here's the Japanese 4K version.

Then, if you want to see it in the original resolution, with subtitles, there's the English Original Resolution Version and the Japanese Original Resolution Version.

Enjoy!

In a public event (and livestream), Krystal was announced today as the newest available fighter in the fan-made Super Smash Flash 2! The livestream is still up showing both the initial reveal reaction and a handful of example matches, showing off her abilities.

Krystal's moveset includes an aim-able sniper rifle, a staff-based shield, lots of kicks and staff attacks, and throwable grenades. Her design is a combination of her Adventures, Assault, and Command styles. She uses voice samples from both Star Fox Adventures and Star Fox Assault.

You can check out the playable game on mcleodgaming.com. It doesn't look like Krystal is playable yet, but hopefully she will be released with the next update.

Rare has put a bunch of their old artifacts and history on display in a museum exhibit called "Rare: From 8-Bit to Xbox One". As far as we know, there's only one piece of promotional art from Dinosaur Planet (above), and nothing for Star Fox Adventures. Still, if you have a chance to be in the city of Coventry, England, you should stop in and take a closer look!

The exhibit started running on June 30th, 2018 and will continue to be open until September 28th, 2018. It's at the The Herbert Art Gallery & Museum.

Sources:

• NintendoLife Article
• Kotaku UK Article
• Photos by HenshinJosh

It should go without saying that several big characters got announced today, to my great surprise. On the home front, though, the Nintendo Direct showed off Krystal as one of the big Assist Trophies in Super Smash Bros Ultimate. We got a few more seconds of video of her fighting with other characters during the presentation, and more would be revealed shortly afterward.

The official Assist Trophy page shows off two new screenshots for her (one above, one below), where she is the first listed Assist Trophy! How's that for representation?

We also got to see her little mini figure representation:

And just for completeness' sake, I have been behind on updating the site, but last month, on July 4th, the Krystal Assist Trophy got a shout out on the Super Smash Bros Ultimate Blog. In the entry, which came with the below image, it says "In addition to attacking with her staff, Krystal also uses Ice Blast to freeze fighters. Don't underestimate her!"

Another thing: though I, and many other Krystal fans noticed it right away, long time Krystal fan, Tobias Amaranth, was the first to publicly publish the fact that Krystal's lower back tattoo appears to be missing in the Assist Trophy. It might be an oversight. Many artists miss it too.

If you were thinking that Nintendo decided to remove the tramp stamp from Krystal's back, believe it or not, there's something very interesting going on. As far as I can tell, Krystal's lower back tattoo, first shown in 2002, predates the term "tramp stamp" in popular usage. I have barely been able to find any references to the term prior to 2004, and the term didn't become popular until around 2006. Though lower back tattoos existed before 2002, the stigma associated with them didn't start until around the time Krystal was revealed. It's entirely possible that the tattoo was added by the design team without meaning for it to be a tramp stamp.

That's it for Smash Bros news today! Hope you all enjoyed the Nintendo Direct.